[B5] Two and a half episodes
Mar. 21st, 2006 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTime was pressing and Byron was painful, so we only caught two and a sixth episodes tonight, "Learning Curve" followed by thankfully little of the painful "Secrets of the Soul". All was redeemed by the and the Neil Gaiman-authored and Penn and Teller-starring "Day of the Dead
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eveglass is quite right to note that Babylon 5 does an excellent job examining the some of the plausible scenarios for the treatment of telepathy and telepaths in a human society. Frankly, as Bester noted in an earlier season, human nature being what it is the control of telepaths through religion or caste structures, else their extermination, is a plausible scenario. If JMS had done a better job writing Season 5, it would have been cracking. Alas, he didn't, and we got Byron, Marcus without any of that character's redeeming qualities. Ribald jokes were made about the characters.
"Day of the Dead," thankfully, was infinitely better. I remain convinced that Gaiman does his best job as a writer working with set pieces. Letting him take a scenario--like, say, what if one night every two hundred years a person could be brought face to face with someone who had died--and run with the implications ensures glorious fun. Gaiman's inspiration is, to my mind, sublime. Adira's reunion with Londo, the sneering encounter of Morden with the too-naïve Lennier, and even Dodger's second frustrated encounter with Garibaldi were all done as well as could be. (A what-if for fan fiction: What if Londo had been able to keep Adira? Would he have brought Centauri Prime to the brink at all, never mind Narn?) The encounter that brought me almost to tears was Lochley's encounter with Zoe. Most of the other Babylon 5 watchers aren't too fond of Lochley, and it is true that it would have been nice to have Ivanova for Season 5. If nothing else, imagine the impact of Ivanova's reunion with her mother. What Lochley's reunion with her young friend, twenty years dead by her own hand, did for me was evoke the pain of a loved one's passing and the sense of lost opportunities. Lochley hurt, and hurts; I could only sympathize.
eveglass is quite right to note that Babylon 5 does an excellent job examining the some of the plausible scenarios for the treatment of telepathy and telepaths in a human society. Frankly, as Bester noted in an earlier season, human nature being what it is the control of telepaths through religion or caste structures, else their extermination, is a plausible scenario. If JMS had done a better job writing Season 5, it would have been cracking. Alas, he didn't, and we got Byron, Marcus without any of that character's redeeming qualities. Ribald jokes were made about the characters."Day of the Dead," thankfully, was infinitely better. I remain convinced that Gaiman does his best job as a writer working with set pieces. Letting him take a scenario--like, say, what if one night every two hundred years a person could be brought face to face with someone who had died--and run with the implications ensures glorious fun. Gaiman's inspiration is, to my mind, sublime. Adira's reunion with Londo, the sneering encounter of Morden with the too-naïve Lennier, and even Dodger's second frustrated encounter with Garibaldi were all done as well as could be. (A what-if for fan fiction: What if Londo had been able to keep Adira? Would he have brought Centauri Prime to the brink at all, never mind Narn?) The encounter that brought me almost to tears was Lochley's encounter with Zoe. Most of the other Babylon 5 watchers aren't too fond of Lochley, and it is true that it would have been nice to have Ivanova for Season 5. If nothing else, imagine the impact of Ivanova's reunion with her mother. What Lochley's reunion with her young friend, twenty years dead by her own hand, did for me was evoke the pain of a loved one's passing and the sense of lost opportunities. Lochley hurt, and hurts; I could only sympathize.
